%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
The confessional struggles of a writer trying to find her voice and her niche. |
| I have other blogs--but none devoted to my struggles with writing. If writing alone was enough, I wouldn't need this blog--but it isn't enough. I need an audience. I need someone to read what I write. I wish it wasn't so, but it is. |
| I've been away for awhile. Not like in prison or the nut house. Nothing like that. I've been a way from this website. So I came back last week and looked at me email---and there must have been 200 messages in there to update my blog. It was uncomfortable really. All those messages pointing out how I'd failed, day after day after day. As if I needed written proof. So I've made efforts---I've written a piece and submitted it here. I've worked on my book. I've lurked. But apparently none of that matters. I looked at my mail box today---new nags were there unread. |
| It was raining when I came home last night---day light savings time went into effect this weekend--so in theory it was supposed to be lighter when I came home. It wasn't. Everything was black and shiny---the streets--the headlights from on-coming cars, the sidewalks, the campaign signs. Black and shiny and wet. The house was warm when I walked in--and I was grateful. Spring is on the horizon, new life is beginning even now, yet instead of being eager to meet the new, I am sad, grieving the end of tax season. Silly. This morning, I awoke to snow--snow on the porches and lawns and falling like cotton fluff from the skies---Yippee. Winter is as reluctant to go as I am to see it go. |
| He was there the next night when she came home from work, sitting on the couch talking to the dog. He hadn't mastered the two remote controls the governed the T.V. "So how was it today?" he asked. "Slow," she said as she turned on the T.V , for him and then cruised to the bathroom to change out of her work clothes into pjs and to wash off her makeup. She had thought he would be there---and no wondered if he meant to stay. She'd have to get used to it--if that's what he decided. She'd have to make it work---but it probably wouldn't come to that--they'd been close to this a couple of times before--but it never happened. In the kitchen she nuked a microwave dinner and poured herself a glass of gingerale, unloading the dishwasher while she waited for her dinner to cook. She took her plate and glass into the living room and sat down in the big recliner to watch t.v. He sat dozing on her sofa and after an hour he awoke, and said, "you'll be needing some boxes." He got up, put on first his heavy jacket, then topped it with his rain slicker. He took his hat from the sofa and put it on his head, pulled on is gloves. "Yeah I will," she said. At the door, he slipped back into his barn boots and said, "so I'll see you tomorrow." He |
| He arrived around 7 p.m.. His third visit of the day. Standing just inside the door, he leaned against it and slipped out of his barn books, then removed two rain-soaked jackets and hung them on the hook next to the wood stove. "I gotta find a new place to live," he said and sat down on the sofa. He'd pulled off his beige stocking cap and set it next to him. The dog, was sniffing it for signs of food, and upon finding none, began scratching at the pocket of his vest. He looked over at the woman he had known and loved for more than 30 years. She'd been reading when he came in, and the smile that she always had for him, narrowed when he spoke. "Why? What's happened?" She asked. "Sally, wants me to start paying rent. Says I'm freeloading." He looked away from her face and made a show of fussing with the dog. "Did Gary finally, lose the place?" She wasn't sure what to make of what he was saying--in all these years he was still a hard man to know. He was a man, who let so many things roll off him, things that others would have fought against or for, but who could be laid low by a single ill-formed comment. Sometimes all he needed was to vent and sometimes it was more than that, much more. After all these years, she still couldn't predict which way it would go. "You know you can always live here, I've told you that. I mean it." "Jen, I just don't feel like I owe them anything. I've given them $160,000 that should pay for my keep for a few years!" His voice had gotten loud and the dog scrambled from the sofa to Jen's lap. Silence rolled out between them like a plush carpet. She went back to her reading, the dog curled up on the arm of the chair and went to sleep, and he sat back on the sofa and closed his eyes. Ice dropped into the freezer container. The neighbors pulled into their driveway, raised their garage door and amped up the truck radio. "Maybe they really need the money?" He said looking up, which was enough of a signal to the dog, to launch her off her perch on the chair and into his lap. He smiled and began to stroke her. "How much do you think I should pay." Jen closed her book and leaned forward in her chair. She looked old today--she hadn't bothered with makeup and the contrast put 10 years on her. "You can't afford to pay her anything..." "I'll have to..." "No, you don't. You get $600 a month Social Security---and you're barely getting by. I think she's losing it---she seems to get herself worked up over every little thing. Stay here. I mean it." Outside the rain had begun to fall. He got up and went to the wood stove, opened the door and began to stir the fire. The light crackled and danced against the floor. He reached into the wood box and chose a couple of smaller logs, and added them to the fire, then closed the door, and turned down the damper. "Still," he said, looking over at her, "it's too much to ask of you. I'd have to pay you, might as well pay her." "Are you kidding? All the things you do for me? Oh heck no, you won't be paying me any rent." She looked at him a long time--but couldn't find the words that would make him know that it really would be fine--that she'd thought about it many times. That in fact the only reason she was still in this tiny town far away from her family was because she wouldn't leave him. She knew she should have said it, maybe even wanted to say it, but the words didn't come. He put on his coats, slipped into his barn boots. "I'll get you some more wood." She watched him go out into the rain. When he returned he stacked the wood in the box. "There," he said, "that should do you til mornin'" She stood and went towards him, grabbed his cold hand, and said. "I can't decide this for you. You have to decide. But I'm gonna get the back bedroom ready." They stood together, as close as a kiss, and he nodded. She could smell hay on his jacket and the sweat for his layers of clothes. The new wood in the stove crackled. The dog heard something outside and lept from the sofa to the floor and darted into the kitchen. The dog door swacked and she was in the yard barking earnestly. "Better go," he said. "I'm a hard woman to live with."She said. "I already know that." |
| Okay I just finished whining about how I can't write anything right now -- can't seem to get jump started, when what do I get in my email. "A 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises" from Writer's Digest. Day One---that would be today. Write 10 Potential titles of books you'd like to write. 1. How Curly Locks Ruined My Life by the Big Bad Wolf. 2. Ten Steps to Aging Rapidly--How to do it, Why to do it. 3. I'm Not Who You Think I Am--Or Am I? The story of mistaken identity 4. Ridiculists---Christmas lists from your favorite fictional characters. 5. Fatalists--Christmas lists that have the potential for going deadly. 6. A Christmas Plan--A Handbook for making the holidays Merry and Relaxing. 7. New Year's Resolutions Dos and Donts 8. Alice Murder--A woman searches for her vanished husband and her own roots. 9. The Golden Goose--ReTold 10. Going it Alone--tips for successful living |
 Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
